I just read a very interesting article about how people view their own creativity around the world. The article which appeared in Ad Age was inspired by a global study conducted by Adobe. It also talked about whether people perceive their countries as maximizing their creative potential. What an interesting topic. Believe it or not, we found this article because we were having an internal debate here at BiddingForGood about how many of our customers think of themselves as creative. We sure hope that most of them do.
Here's the good news. Here in the United States we give ourselves higher marks as being more creative than any other country around the world. 52% of Americans think of themselves as creative. 6 in 10 felt that creativity was very important for the health of our country. In this election season, it's an interesting idea to ponder. But we'll resist getting into an election discussion today. It rarely ends well.
Personally I place very high marks on creativity in life and in work. But for our customers who are putting on fundraising auctions, I would place creativity as a crucial attribute of the organization. Creativity in promotion, in merchandising, and in creating a great experience for your supporters are all really important to a successful auction. Where do we see creativity at it's best? We see it in the unusual and "priceless" items that customers put into their auctions. We see it in the way that they merchandise their auction and their items. We see it in the creative ways that people address challenges around fundraising. And we all know that there are many challenges associated with asking people to part with their money.
So here's to creativity in life, in work and in fundraising auctions. May we never settle for old and tired but always look for fresh ideas, fresh thinking and new ways to inspire our supporters.
There's a big beautiful number on display right now, on BiddingForGood’s Goodometer™ - $150 million. We’ve now helped schools, nonprofits, and charities across the U.S. raise more than $150 million for their good causes!
The Goodometer is a dynamic display on our homepage that shows, minute by minute, how much money schools and nonprofits have raised by running online auctions on our platform. Helped by the bidders who shop on our site, and by the socially responsible business partners that donate products and services to help our clients, the 6,200+ organizations that have partnered with us to run online auctions have raised real dollars that have real impact.
$150 million is a really big number. And sometimes, the best way for us (well, me, I confess) to wrap our (my) head around a really big number is to think in terms of tangible, graspable nuggets. For example, our CEO, Jon Carson, lets us know each month how much we’ve helped to raise for our customers, not only by communicating a total dollar figure, but he does the math (he’s really good at that) and tells us the average amount per employee.
But enough about my innumeracy and Jon Carson’s ability to cut through it. We want you to know just how much impact $150 million can have. So we created a nifty Infographic, to illustrate the impact that this amount of money has in the real world. What would you spend $150 million on?